


in from the cold

by RowboatCop



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Coulson is very confused, F/M, Future Fic, Huddling For Warmth, Naked Cuddling, Phil Coulson is a sad sexy baby deer, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-01
Updated: 2016-05-01
Packaged: 2018-06-05 14:15:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6707548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RowboatCop/pseuds/RowboatCop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coulson and Daisy are caught huddling for warmth, and end up dealing with some of the emotional baggage between them.</p>
<p> <em>“You’re the most important person in the world to me,” he tells her quietly, solemnly, eyes locked on hers like he’s terrified she won’t believe him, and it just makes so much sense all the sudden that of course that’s what Coulson would call it, the feeling of the most important relationship someone could have.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	in from the cold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Persiflage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Persiflage/gifts), [zauberer_sirin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/gifts), [Skyepilot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyepilot/gifts), [BrilliantlyHorrid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrilliantlyHorrid/gifts).



“You’re sure you’re okay with this?”

She can hear him swallow, but she keeps herself facing the other direction towards the fire — doesn’t turn back to look. Even though she wants to.

“Of course. Just get in.”

But he doesn’t just get in; she can hear him shift from foot to foot and she can’t imagine how cold he must be.

She’s freezing and naked and huddled in the sleeping bag, and the whole point of this is to share warmth, but instead he’s just standing behind her, totally naked in the _freezing_ room.

“This is protocol,” he informs her, like reassurance, like she doesn’t fucking know, like she would ever mistake this for a moment of Coulson _wanting_ to curl up naked with her.

(Yeah, okay, _she_ does want to curl up with him. It’s been a slow realization since she ended things with Lincoln, since she found herself sitting with Coulson’s quiet support in the wake of everything with Hive, since she realized that maybe the easy feeling she has when she’s near him is every bit as romantic — no, much more romantic, than the buzzing worry that accompanied her every thought of Lincoln.)

And now, they’re here in a cabin, there’s a fire and a sleeping bag on a bearskin rug — thick and soft and surprisingly nice underneath her — and it’s like something from a romance novel.

Except for the cold, and her wet hair, and the emptiness of the tiny room, and Coulson’s reassurances that it definitely doesn’t look like a romance novel to him.

(It would be nice if his reassurance didn’t leave her feeling like he’d rather be literally anywhere else in the universe than with her, naked in sleeping bag. She’s a little worried he might go jump in a snow bank, that the ice and water and wind that had cut right through their clothes are _actually_ more appealing to him.)

And like, she gets that it’s awkward. It’s _super super_ awkward. But she’s not going to think he’s into her or something just because they’re doing what they have to do to stay warm. It’s sort of insulting, actually, that he seems so hesitant, like maybe freezing to death would be better than touching her naked body. (And, what, giving her the wrong idea?)

When they first got to this stupid little cabin, after a mile hike through an unexpected blizzard, he’d been very professional and matter-of-fact about it. There’s no electricity, no running water, just the one sleeping bag, and as they shivered and built up their fire with the bits and pieces of paper they could find for kindling, they discussed their options.

Option.

There’s obviously only the one.

But it’s like as soon as they stripped down out of their wet clothes — wet all the way down, all the way to their underwear, to skin, to bones — he freaked out.

“Get. In. Coulson.”

She can hear him swallow again, and turns her head enough to see him, but just barely, just the general shape of his pale, naked body. (The vague shadow between his legs that she tries not to focus on because he’s _naked_ , and suddenly she’s as panicked as he seems to be.)

“Yeah. Of course.”

He’s tense as he climbs inside the bag, obviously trying not to touch her, but he brushes up against her because of course he does, because it’s a large sleeping bag but even a large sleeping bag is still just a sleeping bag.

She can’t believe that his skin is somehow colder than hers, but it is.

“Shit,” he hisses under his breath, and sniffs.

“Are you okay?”

“I didn’t realize how c-cold my toes were,” he tells her, his voice tight and small, and he’s obviously in pain. “It s-stings.”

Daisy stretches her foot backwards until she can feel his bare foot against hers, and Coulson whimpers as she gasps — it feels like touching ice.

“Jesus, Coulson.”

Any thoughts of awkwardness leave her as she backs herself against him, turning them so his back is closer to the fire, so his left arm falls easily under her neck, and he puts up no fight.

“You’re warm,” he mumbles into the back of her head, into her cold wet hair, and she turns herself so she’s facing him, so she’s not pressing her wet head against him.

“Okay?” She asks carefully as she wraps her left around him, her right pressed between them on the ground. She’s relieved to feel his muscles relax a bit, but then he starts shaking — like the tension in his muscles was preventing his shivering before.

“Y-yeah,” he whispers and holds her back, his left arm still tucked under her neck and his right draped over her waist, and she doesn’t think about the way her breasts are pressed to his chest because she can’t, because Coulson is freezing half to death and that’s all that can really matter right now.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were this bad?”

“I d-didn’t r-realize.”

“What do you need?”

“This. This is,” he breathes in, and she can feel him relax a bit. “This is helping.”

At that, she ventures to pull him tighter against her. It’s like all the fight that had been in him, like any of that instinct that seemed to be telling him to avoid this, drains out of him.

There’s a long stillness between them as his shivering slows down, and it feels noticeably warmer with him pressed against her, like all the survival stuff about huddling for warmth isn’t just bullshit from romance novels.

The fire is helping, too — warm against them and filling the small room with enough heat to make it bearable.

It’s nice, actually, just being close to Coulson. They’ve been close a lot lately, but never physically close like this, never physically close where she’s gotten to do something so much like taking care of him, and she can’t help but like it. (Tries not to let on how she likes it.)

“This isn’t too cold, is it?” His voice cuts into her thoughts as he flexes his left hand against her shoulder, curling his arm from where it rests under her neck to reach, to touch her with the prosthetic as though it’s a concern for him, and she hadn’t even thought of it.

“No,” she shakes her head against his chest. If she didn’t know, she wouldn’t have been able to tell it wasn’t skin. “Is it okay? After getting wet?”

“Yeah,” he reassures her, and she can feel how he touches her with it more firmly, with more certainty, now that he’s checked. “It’s waterproof. I usually wear it in the shower.”

Daisy nods, tries to push back the image of Coulson in the shower, naked and wet and _naked_. (It’s sort of funny, given that she’s currently pressed up against his naked body.)

“Do you feel the cold through it?”

“Not exactly. It just...hurts. When it gets too cold, all the metal in my arm…”

Something in his voice makes her want to cry, something small and fragile, and she wants to help him — to roll him closer to the fire, to do something else for him.

“Do you need —”

“It’s better now,” he whispers, all reassurance. “I just needed to warm up.”

“If you had just gotten in the sleeping bag right away —”

“I know,” he sighs, at his breath moves over her ear in a way she tells herself is _not_ erotic, even though she can’t stop herself from shivering, and not from cold. As she does, Coulson tightens his arms around her. “I just didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“That’s a noble thought, but you were the one who —”

“I know. I’m sorry.” She can feel him swallow, feel a slow breath between them. “Are you warm enough?”

“Yeah,” she answers, shifting against him. “Yeah, this is good.”

He squeezes her tighter, and then his right hand rubs up and down the length of her spine, creating warmth from the friction, and she wiggles closer until her thigh is pressed between his, until she has nowhere to put her head but against his shoulder, so she’s almost half on top of him. He runs his hand back up, generating more heat against her skin, and it feels ridiculously good.

“Good,” he sighs, and runs his hand back down her back in wide circles, warming her against him.

“I understand, you know, that this is awkward.”

His hand goes still on her back.

“That doesn’t mean you should stop.”

He chuckles against the side of her head, his breath over her ear again in that way that’s definitely not erotic at all. Her body betrays her, though, even if her mind is certain that Coulson’s breath isn’t erotic, and she can suddenly _feel_ everything, the way her breasts — bare, naked breasts — are pressed against his chest — bare naked chest. And the way her thigh is pressed between his, and if she moved she would probably be able to feel —

“Good?” Coulson asks, in a tone of voice that definitely isn’t sensual, as his hands start moving again, slow and careful and just slightly calloused and perfect against her back.

“Yeah,” she answers and returns the favor, rubs her hand over the naked skin underneath it — his back and his side, where she can reach. _For warmth_ , her brain reassures her, even though the touches have nothing to do with warmth for her.

“I haven’t been this cold in a long time,” he tells her, now that he’s not shivering so much. And it’s _almost_ normal, like a regular conversation she would have with Coulson, except that she can’t see his face because her face is pressed to his skin, her leg is between his bare thighs, and his hands are running trails across her naked back.

“When were you last this cold?”

“Siberia. A mission, back probably…” He trails off, like he’s counting backwards in his head, and it’s funny when she remembers how old he is — how many missions he’s had before her. “...twenty years ago?”

When she was eight, her brain supplies. When she was eight years old, maybe when she was with the family in South Carolina — the ones that kept her through Christmas, the year she got her own stocking and real presents, not just a chocolate orange from the sisters — he was older than she is now and freezing his ass off in Siberia running missions for SHIELD.

It makes her laugh.

“What?” He sounds amused, and she tilts her head up enough to see his face, to see his eyes _so close_ to hers. It’s shocking, the bright warm blue so close to her face. She can feel his chest hair on her nipples, but somehow it’s his eyes so close to hers that’s shocking.

“Who did you end up in a sleeping bag with that time?”

“No one,” he answers, a little puff of air like a laugh that tickles her nose. “We had a working shower.”

“I would really love a hot shower right now,” Daisy tells him, still looking right into his blue eyes. “Or a bath.”  

“Hmm,” he answers, and his right hand slides further down her back, like he’s pressing all the way down along her spine until his fingers hit the dimples at the very top of her ass.

She tries not to moan, mostly succeeds.

“Hot water, to warm up,” she half-explains, covering any further moaning as his hand makes the trek back up her spine to her neck.

“That would be nice,” he agrees, and his voice tingles down her spine like his fingers, and there’s no way she can possibly tell herself it isn’t erotic. Even if he doesn’t mean it that way, she can’t help the way her body responds, the way she clenches, the way she can’t stop herself from pressing harder against him.

Which is when she feels... _him_.

“Shit,” he grunts and pulls his hips back, his eyes suddenly terrified instead of sensual. “That’s not, I mean, it’s just because I’m warming up. It’s just...blood flowing.”

“I know,” she tries to reassure him because she can tell he’s embarrassed, because it must be horrible and terrifying to deal with, but it’s so warm and nice with his arms around her.

He pulls back further, like he’s trying to retreat in a _sleeping bag_.

“It’s not because...because of you.”

_That_ ...is weirdly insulting, sticks in her chest in a way it probably shouldn’t. But he was _touching_ her, like really touching her, and…

And she’s always known that he has no interest in her, like she’s _known_ , she’s accepted, she’s seen he has a type and she knows it isn’t her.

Still.

“I know,” she almost snaps, and rolls away from him within the small space allotted, trying to push down those feelings of insecurity, of _hurt_ that he has to be so fucking _explicit_ about it, about how much he doesn’t want her.

He falls silent behind her, pulled back far enough that they’re barely touching, but she can feel him start shivering again. It’s colder without his skin against hers, probably moreso for him.

She closes her eyes and tries to relax her shoulders, tries to will herself to be less cold.

“D-Daisy,” he whispers her name, his teeth chattering again, and most of her irritation melts because he sounds so fucking pathetic, barely able to whisper her name through his quivering jaw. “I’m sorry.”

“I know,” she sighs, all of her annoyance draining out of her. “I know, Coulson. Just...roll over, okay?”

She can feel him do as she’s asked, so she slides towards him and presses her front against his back, wrapping her left arm over his chest as they face the fireplace. His shivering gets less noticeable, but she can’t help but notice the way he keeps his arms carefully out of the way, the way he doesn’t touch her in return.

It stings, but she tries not to let it bother her.

It’s actually not that hard when her brain is so busy turning over the idea that Coulson has an erection, and it is inches away from her hand. She could literally slide her hand down his belly — down from where she’s rubbing tight little circles through his chest hair — and touch it.

That’s not a helpful thought.

“You don’t have to be so freaked out,” she tells him, trying to keep her voice calm and easy, the kind of tone that says, _‘Hey Coulson, I’m not going to read into things just because you had a totally understandable biological response that doesn’t mean anything.’_

“I just don’t want you to —”

“I know. And it’s not like,” she swallows and tightens her arm around him, “it’s not like I’d assume that you’re attracted to me like that. I know you aren’t. You don’t have to worry”

He’s way too still, way too silent.

“It’s just, I was a lot warmer when you were —”

“Fuck,” he breathes, and she’s definitely never heard him say that word before. The sound of it is shocking, almost arousing all by itself. “I’m sorry.”

“So you could turn around? And it will be okay. I know you don’t want —”

“I do,” he whispers, so soft she’s not sure she’s heard it. “I am.”

“Coulson?”

“I _am_ attracted to you.” He takes a deep breath, she can feel his lungs expand under her hand. “And I try not to be,” he adds in that quiet, small voice. “But that’s why it’s a problem.”

“Coulson.”

“I never want to take advantage of you,” and he’s rushing his words now. “So I can —”

“Coulson.”

“— I can go —”

“Coulson, shut up.”

He falls silent, and they stay like that, her chest pressed to his back, and she can’t believe this moment is real. It makes everything today just _better_ , that he wasn’t scared of her getting the wrong idea, no, he was scared of his attraction to her.

He was scared of her getting the _right_ idea.

As she relaxes, though, she can feel how tense he is beside her, and she can’t help but wonder if he’s still hard.

So she slides her hand down his chest, feeling out the shape of firm muscle and hair, of the slight softness of his belly and then the hard flat plane below that.

“ _Skye_ ,” he groans desperately, and she stops, her fingers resting on the smooth stretch of skin.

“What was that?”

“Daisy, dammit. Daisy. Daisy. I —” He swallows. “I didn’t mean —”

“Phil,” she tries — she’s only tried it a few times, really, and it’s different now, now as her fingers creep barely downwards until she can feel pubic hair, rough under her fingertips.

He catches her hand, pulling it up, away from his groin.

“You don’t have to do that.”

She laughs against the back of his neck.

“I know.” He releases her hand and she slides it down his belly again, but stops around his navel, well above anywhere dangerous. “Do you mind if I do it anyways?”

He goes way too still in front of her, so she can’t even feel his breath anymore. After what feels like ages, he whispers:

“Daisy?”

She presses her lips against the back of his neck, and Coulson groans.

“Turn around,” she requests, kisses his neck again, and he lets out a shaky breath as he does.

This time, as he turns, she’s able to stop and notice him: the musculature of his shoulders, the hair on his chest that’s interrupted by the large scar, pink and shiny in a forest of dark brown hair over pale white skin. He has a nice body, really, nice strong shoulders and a warm chest, and she likes it, it turns out.

Coulson swallows, all nerves, and then his eyes dart down the top of her body quickly, like he’s not entirely sure he’s allowed to look. As though he can see very much while she's buried in a sleeping bag.

“What should I —”

“Just hold me?”

His face softens at the request, like it cuts through the awkwardness of the moment, and he slips his left arm back under her neck and wraps his right around her waist.

“Like this?”

Daisy wiggles closer, her leg back between his and her head back on his shoulder, and once she’s comfortable, she sighs happily at the feeling of his whole body pressed against hers, his erection still there — still present and pressed to her thigh — but maybe just not the most important thing right now.

“I’m attracted to you, you know,” Daisy tells him quietly, words whispered against his skin, eyes turned down away from his. She can feel him swallow. “You don’t have to feel bad about it.”

“But,” Coulson’s hands squeeze her gently, a little pulse. “I _love_ you,” he whispers.

“I love you, too,” she answers because it feels easy, because of course she loves him. He’s _Coulson_. And maybe it took her a while to understand that that love she feels for Coulson, it actually fits pretty well with the way she wants to feel his body pressed to hers, with the way his breath over her ear feels erotic, with the way she thinks about him sometimes (her dirty little secret). But she knows, now. She gets it.

“But," he swallows, his body tense, "I’m supposed to love you like…”

He squirms slightly, obviously uncomfortable.

“Like?”

“Like a father.”

His hands get loose against her shoulders and back, like he knows she's going to tense and pull away because she can’t lie here with her naked body pressed against his while he’s telling her how fatherly he feels. Or is supposed to feel.

Daisy has had a lot of potential father figures in her life. A lot. (Too many.) Some were better than others, one was actually her father even if he wasn’t much of a father figure. So she knows — like, she _knows_ — that whatever she has with Coulson, it doesn’t feel like any of that.

So she pulls back, but somehow it’s more awkward when she’s not pressed against him, when she has to _see_ his face and his naked shoulders.

“You just _totally_ freaked out because you’re attracted to me.”

“I’m not supposed to be. You — you’re better than that.”

“Better than what?”

“Than...lust.”

Some of the tension drains out of her at that, and she just feels...sad for him.

“Is lust always bad?”

“I love you so much more than that, Daisy,” he whispers.

“Like...a father.”

He makes a little helpless noise, somewhere in the back of his throat, a wordless admission that he knows he’s ridiculous but he doesn’t know how else to be.

“You’re the most important person in the world to me,” he tells her quietly, solemnly, eyes locked on hers like he’s terrified she won’t believe him, and it just makes so much sense all the sudden that of course that’s what Coulson would call it, the feeling of the most important relationship someone could have.

“I feel the same,” she assures him, reaches out of the warmth of the bag to touch his cheek softly. “But not like you’re my father.”

“No?” He seems almost hopeful, tilts his face so that his cheek rests in her palm.

“No,” she almost laughs and presses herself close to him again, chest to chest. He’s not hard anymore, she can feel that much, but he seems to welcome it still, winds his arms around her gladly.

When Daisy stretches up to brush her lips against his, Coulson freezes for a moment, a short sharp breath against her mouth, and then relaxes. There’s an almost-imperceptible nod, and then she kisses him — soft and undemanding — and he doesn’t kiss back so much as let her kiss him.

She presses her lips softly to his top lip and then the bottom one, but it’s when she sucks his lower lip lightly between hers, when she nips gently at it, that Coulson groans into her mouth — a desperate little noise before he pulls away.

“Was that okay?” She frowns at him, at his labored breathing, at the wide-eyed look he’s got as he stares at her.

“Yeah,” he answers, eyes darting down to her mouth again. “Yeah, I…”

He swallows.

“You need time,” she suggests, because hopefully that’s all he needs.

“Time,” he seems to agree, but then he leans in and kisses her, hands clutching at her shoulders and back, holding her against him. It’s slow, but increasingly less careful, his tongue sliding against hers and his lips wet and his fingers kneading at her body like he can’t get her close enough.

She can’t help it, the way she moves against him, arching her hips like he might offer some friction. It only takes a moment before he rolls them, before he slides his whole body on top of hers, and she can feel him hard and hot against her thigh. Another careful arch of her back, and his cock is between her legs, hot against hot, and she lets out an embarrassingly loud noise, something like a sob.

“Too fast,” Coulson groans, and moves so he’s no longer on top of her, so she can feel his cock pressing to her hip instead of between her thighs.

“Sorry,” Daisy breathes.

“No,” he shakes his head, “no. My fault. I…” He swallows and looks down at her, and she can’t even read everything in his expression, the look of someone who is confused and maybe also someone who has finally found some kind of answers.

She’s surprised, though, when he rests his fingers softly against her cheek and then trails them slowly down her neck. It’s a light, almost ticklish touch that makes her squirm against him, especially when he dips his fingers lower, tracing the swell of her left breast and the dip of her waist and the curve of her hip.

“Coulson,” she mouths more than speaks as she drops her thighs open, as she invites him to touch her.

“This is okay?” He asks quietly as his fingers sweep softly up her slit, and she has to tilt her hips to open for him, to open as much as she can.

“Yesss,” she hisses as his index finger touches her clit, rubbing feather-light circles that tingle up her spine and down her legs before dipping down to push just barely inside of her.

“Daisy,” he calls her name, and it’s only when she opens her eyes that she realizes she had closed them.

He holds her gaze, his eyes hot and curious as he pushes his finger inside of her, moves it slightly until she gasps at the way he hits a spot that makes her whole body throb. Her little noise makes him smile, makes his whole face light up, and his mouth drops open as he pushes another finger inside of her and begins moving his hand in earnest.

“Daisy,” he whispers her name every time it feels like her eyes might drift shut, so that she’s always looking up into his eyes, into the depths of them — blue and flickering slightly in the firelight.

She clutches at him as he works his hand against her, as the tension mounts in her body and her forehead breaks into a sweat and she can’t believe she’s ever been cold.

When she comes apart against his hand, she’s silent, but the pleasure twists through her, Coulson’s eyes burn through her, and she tugs him down enough that she can bury her face in the side of his neck.

They hold each other, she doesn’t know for how long, Coulson dropping easy kisses to the side of her head and her hair and anywhere else he can reach.

When she reaches down to touch him, though, he pulls his hips back, makes a noise that isn’t exactly a ‘no,’ but definitely isn’t a ‘yes,’ either.

Time, she knows. He needs time. She gets it, that it’s easier to do something for her than to let her do something for him.

“I want to, you know,” she tells him, though she slides her hands around his back, holding him with her hands safely out of any dangerous spots.

“I know. I’m just not —”

“It’s okay.” She swallows, shakes her head, trying to make sure that there’s nothing pressuring here. It's just that she needs to make sure he knows. “But I _want_ to.”

“You want to jack me off.” He says it like he’s a little incredulous.

“Yes,” Daisy agrees easily. “I want to make you _come_ , Coulson. I want to take care of you. I want to make you feel good.”

He exhales at that, harsh and noisy.

“Soon?”

“Yeah,” she agrees, cuddling further into him, pulling his body against hers. “Soon.”

Soon actually feels pretty okay as he lets her wrap her arms around him, lets her hold him and keep him warm, lets her have a way to worry about what he needs.


End file.
